Honolulu 檀島咖啡 @ Hong Kong

Although available in Singapore these days, the original is still the best. For breakfast, I brought Princess to my favourite chachaanteng.

Founded in 1940 by the late Mr Yeung Jin Hei, Honolulu Coffee Shop was among the first chachaanteng in Hong Kong. The Western restaurants and cafes were not accessible to the locals, either because of status or price, prompting Chinese-owned Western-style cafes to pop up in the 1940s, providing “soy sauce Western food” 豉油西餐.

Honolulu Cafe (檀島咖啡餅店) is like any typical chachaanteng in HK serving a variety of fusion cuisine such as milk tea, French toast, instant noodles, pineapple bun, scrambled egg with toast and etc, and is a short distance from Wanchai MTR station. It is my regular stop for their flaky, delicious egg tarts.

These cafes were different from the teahouses 茶楼 that served dimsum with Chinese teas, they were the product of colonialism and switching tastes to Western drinks like brewed tea and coffee, and for cakes and pastries. 

Service in these chachaantengs is not something Hong Kongers are proud to talk about. They range from curt to downright rude. Honolulu shares the same reputation. Impatient for the sake of efficiency, unknowing tourists need to know what they in for so that they wouldn’t get a culture shock.

In June 2014, the Hong Kong Government listed the “pineapple bun” as a part of Hong Kong’s intangible cultural heritage. The crispy skin on the outer surface of the polo bun is baked from sugar, eggs, flour and butter, which adds a unique taste to ordinary bread. 檀島菠蘿油 Honolulu “Pineapple Butter” used a thick slab of Anchor butter and it reminded me of Yakun kaya butter toast in the old days. Nothing beats a fresh warm bun off the oven with the cold butter.

Drinks in these chachaanteng are also different from your Starbucks. 絲襪奶茶 HK style mill tea (literally stocking milk tea), 齋啡 HK style long black and the mixture of the two called 鴛鴦 yuenyeung (literally Mandarin ducks, because they always go in pair like coffee and tea). Hong Kong–style milk tea is made of a mix of several types of black tea (often Ceylon tea), possibly pu’er tea, evaporated milk, and sugar, the last of which is added by the customer unless in the case of take-away.  It was said that stocking milk tea and yuenyeung were invented by Lan Fong Yuen (蘭芳園) in 1952, but the former is now a UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage listing.

Ok, I am not insinuating that I got the same service. But the ordering process during breakfast was similar; you picked from a pre-set menu (Set A-D), and then quickly specify the options you want for each set.

For example, A 餐 is the typical instant noodle with choice of a topping, two eggs done your way and butter bread, and a drink. But you get to change the instant noodle to macaroni, horfun, vermicelli; the topping can be luncheon meat, sausage, shredded chicken or shredded ham; the eggs can be scrambled, overeasy or fully cooked; the bread can be toasted or left alone.

So you can imagine if you are coming to eat here for the first time, the frustration of the service staff having to repeat the instruction every time. And especially during the peak hours of breakfast, lunch and dinner, this pressure of ordering can be stacked both ways.

Regardless whether you are a fan or not, the chachaanteng is still one of the most economical place to have a meal for under HKD 100 per person. It is fast food that is only prepared after ordering, and the food quality can vary, but Honolulu remains one of the better ones around.

Honolulu Coffee Shop 檀島咖啡餅店
灣仔軒尼詩道176-178號地下
Tel : +852 2575 1823

Visited Dec 2023